"This isn't supply and demand, it's highway robbery!" I added, now directing my tirade at the attendant. "How can you possibly charge this much for gas?"

"It does seem a little high," he admitted.

"A little high?" I said in disbelief. "I'd say that 32.9 cents a gallon is really high!"

Or at least it seemed really high in 1967. After all, just a year earlier I was filling up the ol' 1956 Olds for 24.9 cents a gallon. I could top off the tank for less than $5 (at least, I could have ... if I ever had $5). And they'd throw in a set of glasses and a place-setting of silverware to boot!

Little did we know at the time, it was only the beginning of rising gas prices.

I could go for a week on a dollar's worth of gas back then ... and I think I only got five miles to a gallon! Now a buck won't even fill up the gas can for the lawn mower halfway.

Gas prices have been creeping up faster than my hairline over the past few months, but the other day it reached a new high (at least for me).

I was a little low in the gas department ... OK, every warning light on the dash was glaring at me. So with only fumes feeding my starving engine, I had little choice of gas stations—it was the first one I could find, or I would find myself walking.

I pulled into a Shell station, and to my horror they were charging $2.359 for the medium grade unleaded!

OK, now I was no math wizard in school (hey, I thought a logarithm was a musical instrument). But even with my limited knowledge of numbers, I can figure out that the extra .9 is really another penny. Who are they trying to fool anyway?

So I was stuck. My choices were to pay the $2.36 a gallon, or push my car to the next station. I paid the $2.36.

But it was really my own fault. I could have paid $2.299 at the Texaco (that's really $2.30) down the street. But I was looking for a bargain. Two bucks and 36 cents ... some bargain!

Of course, there's a reason for the high prices—it's those expensive ad campaigns.

And what is it that they're advertising? Better gas? Better mileage? Lower prices?

No, Chevron's campaign features a new toy— a talking "claymation" car that we can purchase for our kids (after purchasing our gas, of course). Thanks, but I'll buy my toys at Toys 'R Us.

And at Union? Well, they had a campaign to mock Chevron's, and they were encouraging customers to fill up at their station because they have clean restrooms. Now, that's something to consider when my tank's full, but not when the car's tank is empty.

Sometimes you have to wonder what these advertising folks are thinking about when they write this stuff.

"How can we get people to buy our product?" one will ask, and another will say, "Hey I've got an idea—let's sell them a toy car when they buy our gas!" The amazing thing is that the first guy will then say, "Yeah! Great idea!"

Amazing.

Of course, strange advertising claims and promises are not limited to the gas and oil types.

There's the insurance company that tells us to give us their business because a lizard says we should; or the fast food chain that hopes to change its greasy, fried-food image in this health conscious society by calling their product Kitchen Fresh Chicken (hey, we know Kentucky Fried when we see it!); or those ads that push special drugs that promise to make our aches, pains and ailments go away ... but side effects could include headaches, colds, backaches, stomach bleeding, heart disease, shingles, leprosy and, in rare cases, death (hmm, that sounds like a pill I want to try!).

How about that ad where super model Lauren Hutton was saying, "I wouldn't go back to being 21 unless I could take my 50-year-old brain with me." Now let's see, I could be 21 again, and all I'd have to give up is this worthless old brain?

I used to like the old AAMCO commercials that assured customers, "50 percent of all cars serviced don't need a new transmission." My math's not great, remember, but that means half of their customers are buying new trannies. Why do I know which half I'd be in?

But the one that really worries me is the campaign that pushes the "VISA Rewards" program. That's all my fiancée needs to hear ... that someone will give her a reward for running the credit card to its limit.

Now, if that reward was a free tank of gas with the purchase of a talking car, I might be interested.

Want to talk? Call me at 408.354.3110, ext. 31, or drop me a note at dsparrer@svcn.com.